​Egypt, represented by NTRA, hosted the Plenary Meeting of the Euro-Mediterranean Regulators Group (EMERG) tomorrow today at NTRA’s premises in the Smart Village as it received the Group’s chairmanship from its current chair, the Italian National Telecom Regulatory Authority (AGCOM) during the meeting.

At its plenary meeting in 2017, EMERG’s member states decided to choose Egypt, represented by NTRA, to chair EMERG during the year 2018-2019. The Organization received the support of these Member States. Accordingly, 13 countries confirmed their attendance to the meeting that will be held on 20 March 2018 in Cairo where AGCOM will hand over the Group’s chairmanship.

This significant event comes within the framework of NTRA’s participation in EMERG’s meetings and activities and its focal points meeting that was held in Sarajevo - Bosnia and Herzegovina on 20 and 21 February 2018. Member states voted on the Group’s draft agenda in 2018 that will be approved at the upcoming plenary meeting. The agenda items include 5G regulation, IoT and M2M regulation and innovation in addition to quality of service regulation.

The European Union decided to continue funding EMEG after the conclusion of the third phase of New Approaches for Telecommunications Policy (NATP III) program, in January 2016 with the commencement of the 4-year project’s fourth phase, knowing that it would take the necessary measures leading to its future independence. The EU's interest in funding EMERG's activities an integral part of its interest in legal approximation in the telecom sectors of the Mediterranean region to the legal framework for the European telecommunication sectors, or at least the overall contribution to the development of regulations in the telecom sectors in the Mediterranean region.

The agenda of the meeting included a presentation of the new developments of EMERG’s activities since last Plenary and Draft 2017 and the endorsement of the Group’s annual and benchmarking Reports. The EC made a short presentation on the UfM and the tangible benefits of the labelling. In addition, The CNMC representative summed up the main outcomes from the 2017 EMERG- BEREC (Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications) cooperation. The Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes (ARCEP) proposed the extension for other 2 years of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in place between BEREC and EMERG, providing a framework for their joint activities. This MoU was signed in April 2014 for two years and was not extended since then.